To remain alone in the house with his daughters after the burial and answer their questions seemed to him impossible.

The meeting of the Council, which would soon begin, served as a pretence for leaving them.  Eva was to blame for what he had just suffered; but he knew everything concerning the rumours about the inexperienced girl and Heinz Schorlin, and there fore was aware that her fault was trivial.  To censure her seemed as difficult as to discuss calmly with her and the sensible Els what could be done under existing circumstances; besides, he was firmly convinced that Eva had nothing left except to take, without delay, the veil for which she had longed from childhood.  His sister, the Abbess Kunigunde, was keeping the door of the convent open.  She had promised the girl to await her at home.  In taking leave of his daughters, he begged them not to wait for him, because the Council were to decide the fate of the Eysvogel business, and the session might last a long while.

Then his Els gazed at him with a look of such earnest entreaty that he nodded, and in a tone of the warmest compassion began:  “I shall be more than glad to aid your Wolff, my dear girl, but he himself told you how the case stands.  What would it avail if I beggared myself and you for the Eysvogels and their tottering house?  I must remain hard now, in order later to smooth the path for Wolff and you, Els.  If Berthold Vorchtel would make up his mind to join me, it might be different, but he summoned the Council as a complainant, and if he is the one to overthrow the reeling structure, who can blame him?  We shall see.  Whatever I can reasonably do for the unfortunate family shall be accomplished, my girl.”

Then he kissed his older daughter on the forehead, hastily gave the younger the same caress, and left the chapel.  But Els detained him, whispering:  “Whatever wrong was inflicted upon us yesterday, do not let it prejudice you, father.  It was meant neither for her whose peace nothing can now disturb, nor for you.  We alone——­”

“You certainly,” Herr Ernst interrupted bitterly, “were made to feel how far superior in virtue they considered themselves to you, who are better and purer than all of them.  But keep up Eva’s courage.  I have been talking with your Uncle Pfinzing and your Aunt Christine.  You yourself took them into your confidence, and we will consult together how the serpent’s head is to be crushed.”

He turned away as he spoke, but Els went back to her sister, and after a brief prayer they left the church with bowed heads.

The sedan-chairs were waiting outside.  Each was to be borne home separately, but both preferred, spite of the bright summer weather, to draw the curtains, that unseen they might weep, and ask themselves how such wrongs could have been inflicted upon the dead woman and themselves.

The respect of high and low for the Ortlieb family had been most brilliantly displayed when the body of the son, slain in battle, had been interred in the chapel of his race.  And their mother?  How many had held her dear! to how many she had been kind, loving, and friendly!  How great a sympathy the whole city had shown during her illness, and how many of all classes had attended the mass for her soul!  And the burial which had just taken place?